


The Five Things He Learns About Her  …  And Then The One Thing She Learns About Him

by Pollydoodles



Series: Just Five Damn Things [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5955643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out Darcy sleeps like a cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Turns out Darcy sleeps like a cat.

Turns out Darcy sleeps like a cat. 

That is to say, anywhere and everywhere, and on anyone. Bucky finds this out when she falls asleep on him. He’s not even sure exactly how it happened, just that she wasn’t there and then somehow she was, asleep. He looked around, awkwardly, hoping someone might come along and help. 

No one appeared. 

He shuffled, uncomfortable at the closeness, but succeeded only in her head sliding down and nestling further in the crook of his arm. No, he thought, squirming slightly. No, no, no, no. Too much. Too close. Do not like. Dark hair spilled out across his lap as she shifted in her sleep, eyes tight shut and body fully relaxed. She’s not even fully on the couch, legs up and over the arm whilst her torso is wedged up against his side and her head now dangerously close to being in his crotch.

Warmth radiated from the girl, and Bucky almost felt like she was burning against him where her careless limbs brushed up and draped over his tense body. She sighed against him, loose and comfortable, and he’s amazed at her. Godammned amazed. He raised his left arm slightly, the arm that the others – all but Steve – throw cautious glances at whenever the metal glints in the sunlight, and she sinks further into him. 

Hesitantly, he lowers the arm around her waist, careful not to brush against anything he shouldn’t. Stupid thought really, given that Darcy was hung all over him. The girl sighs and stretches slightly in her slumber, one arm flung across his thigh by her head and the other slips across his left arm – so carefully, oh so carefully, held against her side – like it’s nothing at all. The metal warms slightly against her body heat. 

A minute passed, and Bucky released a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. Okay. He rolled his head back against the couch and shut his eyes. Just for a minute, he promised himself. 

Some time later, Steve passes through the common room. He pauses, then backtracks his steps. He just about stops himself from rubbing his eyes like a cartoon because, in front of him, tumbled together like puppies after a long day at play, are Darcy and Bucky. Both sleeping, both relaxed. His jaw drops. Darcy, he’s used to. Heck, everyone’s used to finding Darcy asleep somewhere – the couch, the lab, the window seat. Curled up or, more usually, sprawled out some place she probably shouldn’t be. Steve’s jolted awake to the sounds of explosions on the TV with Darcy nestled into his shoulder more times than he’d be bothered to count. 

But Bucky. 

Well, he’s not sure he’s seen his friend so seemingly care-free since – well, he thought, probably since before the war. 

The captain carefully drapes a blanket over the unlikely pair and retreats quietly.


	2. She loves karaoke. No damn good at it, but she loves it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She loves karaoke. No damn good at it, but she loves it. 
> 
> Bucky wasn’t too sure what karaoke was, initially. An off-the-hand admission that had Darcy and Tony reaching for car keys and Bruce disappearing without a sound to the lab. Steve gave out a resigned sigh, and threw a jacket at Bucky before shrugging on his own. “Come on, jerk. You’ve done it now.”

She loves karaoke. No damn good at it, but she loves it. 

Bucky wasn’t too sure what karaoke was, initially. An off-the-hand admission that had Darcy and Tony reaching for car keys and Bruce disappearing without a sound to the lab. Steve gave out a resigned sigh, and threw a jacket at Bucky before shrugging on his own. “Come on, jerk. You’ve done it now.” 

Half an hour later and they’re in a bar; that much is fine by Bucky. Unlike Steve, he can catch a buzz, although it’ll take him longer than most others and Stark takes delight in telling the whole place that James Buchanan Barnes is not a cheap date. Bucky glowers into his beer and sucks it down, saying nothing. Stark slides a tumbler of something dark over to him and he stops it reflexively with his left hand. 

“Try that, Elsa.” 

Bucky’s long since given up bothering to decipher Stark’s comments, so in response he downs the glass in one. It’s sort of bitter and a little sweet at the same time, with a real kick on the aftertaste that takes his breath away and leaves him finishing it with a sharp cough. His mouth twists involuntarily and he glances down at the empty tumbler before looking back at the other man. 

“The hell is that?” 

“Don’t ask, don’t tell. You’re gonna need it, though.” Stark jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the makeshift stage area and Darcy is about to take the floor. Across the table, Steve grimaces. Bucky throws him a questioning look, but then she begins. He doesn’t know the song, but assumes from the faces on the other man at the table that this is not a good rendition. Then his super-soldier hearing kicks in. Bucky winces. 

Bucky and Steve both were raised to be polite, especially to women. Steve had succeeded more often than Bucky did, and Bucky had redefined his own version on what polite meant and what type of woman – beautiful – he’d exercise it on most thoroughly. Tony had had no such upbringing and therefore was alternating between stuffing shredded beer mats into his ears and downing glass after glass of whatever liquor it was that he’d forced on Bucky. 

Steve threw Bucky a long-suffering look that the other man knew all too well, scrambled memory or no. Do something, Buck, his blue eyes pleaded. Anything. He sighs, already knowing that whatever it is he opts to do will work out better for Steve than him. Like always. 

Bucky rises slowly from his seat, Stark’s jaw dropping as he does so, bits of beer mat falling from his ears and catching on his shoulders as he turns to look at the dark haired former assassin. Bucky drains what’s left of the god-awful liquor in his tumbler before he approaches the stage and plucks the microphone from a surprised Darcy. He waves her aside and, somewhat reluctantly, she relinquishes the stage to him. 

He takes a deep breath. 

He thinks he’s heard this song before. If not, this might be the most embarrassing moment of his life. That said, he’s taking over from Darcy, who’s single-handedly made several people leave the bar already, whether she realises it or not. 

He notices Steve’s face, which looks about as taken aback as it did the day he slugged Jimmy Mouskewitz the first time he called Steve a half-grown streak of piss. Yeah, Steve, this is the kind of length I’ll go to for you. New century or no. He’s not sure what it is Steve thought he’d do, but anyone can see he didn’t expect this. Still probably better than the alternative, Bucky thinks, sardonically, to himself. 

He’s heard this song, once or twice. He might even have heard Darcy playing it in the tower. Scratch that, he has heard Darcy playing it. The only reason he’s choosing it now, obviously, is because he knows the words. No other reason. 

“For once in my life-“

Stark’s eyebrows hit his forehead and his phone comes up to eyelevel automatically. Steve silently pushes it down, his eyes on the stage. Darcy slips in next to Stark and her mouth is open. Bucky tries not to focus on that as he continues, one eye on the lyrics on the small monitor to his right. Stark slides over a tumbler of liquor to Darcy which she absentmindedly sips, eyes on the stage, before choking violently and shoving it back towards Tony. 

“And somehow I know I’ll be strong-“

“I didn’t know he sang?” Bucky could hear Darcy asking Steve, surprise colouring every accent of her voice as she did so. Why so surprised, kid? There’s a lot you don’t know about me. 

“Well, I mean, he kinda did before-“ Steve answered, twisting in his seat and narrowing his eyes at Bucky, who was doing his best to follow the words on the screen as well as what fragments he could remember of the tune in his head. Steve was never one to lie, even if it would serve him well to do so. 

“-Not this song.” Steve finished with a half-smile towards Darcy. “And there was no such thing as karaoke.”

“As long as I know I have love, I can make it-“

“He’s really good!” Darcy exclaimed, and Tony choked on his drink at her words. Steve kicked him hard under the table. No matter how bad Darcy sang, he’d rather take a bullet in the ribs than let her know. Bucky let a small grin pass over his features as he watched them. Darcy dropped her chin into her hands as she watched him, and he pushed the sudden warm feeling that gave him well down past his boots. 

Bucky finished to some scattered applause – mostly Darcy – and, somewhat embarrassed, slunk back to their booth. The petite brunette smiled up at him, her expression lighting up her entire face as she did so. Stark waved over the waitress and entreated her to bring over at least four more beers. 

Darcy catches his fingers in her hands – both of them – and whispers across the table at him.   
“That was amazing.”

He detects no hint of sarcasm in her voice or body language, but all the same cannot bring himself to answer her. Instead, he downs the vile drink the waitress provides him with and gestures to her for another, despite the doubtful look on her face as he does so. He ignores the disappointed expression that washes over Darcy’s face.


	3. Darcy is, he’s surprised to learn, good at darts.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy is, he’s surprised to learn, good at darts.

Darcy is, he’s surprised to learn, good at darts. 

Not Hawkeye good, but good none the less. Good like maybe she’d’ve made a decent sniper, back in the day. Good like maybe she could’ve given Peggy a run for her money with a gun. With training. When he mentions that to her, she laughs and pushes him slightly before taking another slug of beer. 

He’s good too. Of course. 

“I can’t work out if you’d be better or worse with the metal arm.” Darcy mused, resting back on her heel and regarding him. Bucky rolls his eyes, switches the darts over to his left hand and the three thud into the centre – or thereabouts; he’s not quite Hawkeye either, leastways not with darts – of the board seconds later. Darcy arches an eyebrow. “Competitive much.” She grumbles. 

But he knows she’s not really pissed at him. 

He falls back, necking his beer as he does so, to allow her to step up to the board. He allows a small grin to ghost across his face. This is something he does remember. Darts, beer, bar. This is familiar, and somewhat comforting. He can’t quite place Darcy into the picture, guessing that dames wouldn’t have been hanging out in bars back in the day, although to be honest with the jumble of memories and falsities rolling around between his ears, he wouldn’t know either way. He has a feeling that maybe Darcy doesn’t quite fit in anywhere. 

And that’s something he can get with. Bucky doesn’t quite fit in anywhere now either. 

They’d ended up at this bar, for lack of anything else to do. The others were off on some mission or other, Steve still shouting reassurances and something about it just being a routine op at Bucky as Stark and Thor bundled him bodily into the Quinjet. Darcy, appearing at his shoulder, had asked whether Steve did the same thing when he left to go grocery shopping. 

Despite himself he’d snorted, she’d grinned and that had somehow led to this. 

She’s stilled now, about the only time he ever sees her not practically vibrating with energy is when she’s concentrating on the dart board. Almost as if she has had sniper training; the calm centre one needs whilst sighting a target and the exhale tied to the trigger squeeze – or, in this case, throw. 

She’d laughed at him when he’d dropped that into conversation, too. Rolled her eyes and squinted up at him before replying. “Spend enough time in a bar, Barnes, and you work out the technique.” She’d punctuated her words with throws, the darts thudding with precision into the corkboard. 140; leaving her with only a double 20 needed to win. 

She tosses him a smirk over her shoulder, delicate little face framed by a cloud of dark hair, then turns back to the board. He grins, and finds himself running his eyes over her frame. It surprises him. He’s not experienced that sort of want, or desire, however fleeting it is, for a long time. And he’s been okay with that, got other things on his mind far more important that worrying about chasing after a short skirt and a willing mouth. 

Huh.   
There’s a thought.

“Hey.” An indignant tone cut across his thoughts and he snapped his head down to find Darcy glaring up at him. “You just totally missed my winning throw.” She thumbed over her shoulder towards the dartboard, and he could see she’d hit the double 20 square in the midst of the green cork. 

He looked back to the girl, who was peering up at him. “You got me.” He said. “Best of three?”


	4. Driving was somewhat of a wild-card for Darcy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Driving was somewhat of a wild-card for Darcy. 
> 
> Some days, she was fine. Some days, she would hop into the car – Jane’s beaten up old station wagon, there were a few too many other days for Stark to trust her with any of his – focus on the task at hand and no one had to lunge for the steering wheel to pull the car back into the right lane. 
> 
> Other days, Darcy was a pure menace on the road.

Driving was somewhat of a wild-card for Darcy. 

Some days, she was fine. Some days, she would hop into the car – Jane’s beaten up old station wagon, there were a few too many other days for Stark to trust her with any of his – focus on the task at hand and no one had to lunge for the steering wheel to pull the car back into the right lane. 

Other days, Darcy was a pure menace on the road. 

Bucky found that out after she’d offered to drive him to the store. He’d only made a dry comment under his breath about Steve having finished the last of the cornflakes – again – which had ended in Steve flinging the empty cereal packet at his head, shortly followed by the rather less empty milk carton. Both had bounced off his forehead which hadn’t actually hurt but had caused him to rise from the stool, the closest object he could reach in hand and ready to launch it at Steve’s grinning face. 

Darcy had stepped between them, right in the trajectory of the peppermill, and offered to take him to the store. Steve had thrown him a suggestive wink over her shoulder and Bucky wished he’d never mentioned that trip to the bar and the fleeting thoughts he’d had about Darcy, her curves and what he might like to do with them given the chance. He’d forgotten how single-minded Steve could be, especially when he was feeling righteous. 

Unable to say no, he found himself wedged into the front seat of the station wagon. It wasn’t really built for six foot odd of enhanced man, and he shifted uncomfortably in the leather seat. Darcy gave him a shy smile over her right shoulder, dark hair tumbling down her back and framing her small face. Bucky felt a sharp jerk somewhere around the pit of his stomach, and studiously ignored it. 

“Ready?” 

Her bright smile sparkled at him from the other side of the car, and he arranged his face into some semblance of a grin back at her. He thought he’d probably not succeeded as she reeled back slightly and fixed her eyes on the dash. Bucky sighed inwardly. He had foggy memories of being what Steve called a ladies man, but they felt so far away and so impossible that he might as well have been watching a movie of someone else’s life when they kicked in and flashed across his mind. 

“Okay.” She muttered to herself and turned the key. 

The car sputtered into life and she pulled out of the drive. 

 

Bucky hadn’t driven for a while. How long a while was, he wasn’t really sure. He could remember flashes of cars and even motorcycles, guns strapped to his back and to his thighs. Those memories, although he didn’t want them to do so, left him with a strong taste of power and adrenaline. 

He also remembered watching car crashes, the smell of molten metal and burning tyres filling his nostrils. Those memories made him dry wretch and not want to get behind the wheel of a car ever again. 

It was half an hour to the store. Just half an hour. Bucky gripped the arm rest firmly and glanced over at Darcy who was humming happily to herself as she drove, fingers tapping against the steering wheel and eyes thankfully on the road. 

He looked longer than he meant to, taking her in. Porcelain bright skin. Red splashed lips. Knitted bobble hat jammed over her unruly curls, hot-pink framed glasses perched on her nose as she mouthed under her breath in time to words he didn’t recognised and probably wouldn’t want to recognise. Something about shaking it off, he didn’t know. It seemed to make Darcy happy, though. 

Unconsciously, he bit his lip, eyes still raking over Darcy like she was his to look at. Get a grip, Buck. He mentally shook himself and pulled his gaze back to the road, exhaling hard and trying not to show it. Darcy, in the meantime, leaned over to change radio station, still humming happily to herself. The car swerved to the left. 

Bucky extended an arm and pushed her back upright. She threw him a confused look and he jerked the wheel back in line with the road as she stared at him. “S’cool, dude, don’t sweat it.” She said, laughing and looking back to the road. Bucky shook his head and, bringing his own eye line back to the road where he briefly locked sight with the BMW driver in the other lane that she’d nearly side-swiped. 

Bucky gripped the arm rest tighter. He wasn’t worried for himself – it would take a lot more than a girl with a car to take him out – but he couldn’t say the same for anyone else who happened to encounter them on their way to the store. Or indeed Darcy. The plastic creaked slightly under the pressure of his hand and he relaxed a little, reminding himself it couldn’t possibly be worse than anything else he’d been subjected to. 

Fifteen minutes. He’d driven the same route with Steve before. He was certain it hadn’t taken this long, even with Steve’s careful and considered driving. It occurred to Bucky that, had the wider press ever witnessed Steve’s driving, which was – in Bucky’s opinion – bordering on insanely slow, they’d wonder how he’d ever managed the gumption to blow up so many Hydra bases during the war. 

Darcy swerved to miss a non-existent pot hole and Bucky threw her a wild look. She was fiddling with the radio again and had just one hand on the wheel. He reached out and corrected the car again, and opted to leave his hand there. She glanced at him, then at his hand. She shrugged. Bucky had to assume this wasn’t the first time a passenger had taken back seat driving to a more inclusive level. 

Ten minutes. 

Bucky was starting to sweat. His hand still on the wheel, keeping it steady in a way Darcy seemed incapable of doing. With his assistance, she seemed to relax even further, adjusting the seat back and settling back further into the seat comfortably. 

“God, it’s hot, isn’t it hot?” Darcy exclaimed. She took her hands off the wheel entirely as she struggled out of her coat, narrowly missing hitting him in the face as she did so. He grasped at the wheel blindly as her bright blue coat flashed in front of him, her arms waving frantically as she pulled herself out of it in the small space. 

He heard a long honk from another car as he fought to control the car around her movements. Finally, she got the offending garment off and threw it haphazardly behind her onto the back seat. She sighed in pleasure. “Ugh, I just hate feeling restricted whilst driving, makes it so much harder, don’t you think?” He opted not to look at her for fear he’d explode. In laughter or rage, he wasn’t quite sure. 

Five minutes. 

He sighed audibly as the store sign hove into view. Darcy cut him a hard look as he did so, and he allowed himself a small smile, hoping he knew enough of her that she wouldn’t be offended. Finally – oh god, finally – the car slid into a parking space just in front of the store. 

Bucky was up and out of the car, the door slamming hard, before Darcy could even get her seatbelt off. Popping out of the car a minute after he did, her serious dark features glared at him from over the top of the car. 

“What’s that all about?” She demanded. 

“I’m driving back.” He pointed firmly at her. “Me. I’m driving. You can- you can sit in the back seat.” With that, he stalked into the store, leaving her grinning by the car. 

Pulling out her phone, Darcy sent Steve a quick message. Sorted. You owe me big time for looking like the world’s worst driver, though.


	5. She was breakable. Frighteningly so.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was breakable. Frighteningly so. 
> 
> He wasn’t used to it. Wasn’t sure if he could ever get used to it. He had memories that played, often unasked, across his mind in sepia-tone of a smaller, skinner Steve who coughed constantly and an accompanying feeling of dread that ran cold through his bones. Despite that, he couldn’t reconcile those images with the Steve who stood just a little taller than him, the Steve who could send a punching bag flying across the gym, the Steve who grinned at him, winked, then fell headfirst from a jet without a parachute.

She was breakable. Frighteningly so. 

He wasn’t used to it. Wasn’t sure if he could ever get used to it. He had memories that played, often unasked, across his mind in sepia-tone of a smaller, skinner Steve who coughed constantly and an accompanying feeling of dread that ran cold through his bones. Despite that, he couldn’t reconcile those images with the Steve who stood just a little taller than him, the Steve who could send a punching bag flying across the gym, the Steve who grinned at him, winked, then fell headfirst from a jet without a parachute. 

Steve, and indeed himself, could be beaten black and blue and not show any sign of it half an hour later. Hell, both of them could break bones in the morning and not be any the worse off by the evening. Super serum. It had stolen his life yet also made it easier. At least in some small respects. 

He’d gotten used to that. 

Well, he’d not had much knowledge of it for the greater part of his unnaturally long life span. But now that he was in charge of his own self, his own motions, his own body, he could at least appreciate the advantages it afforded him. And it made him all the more nauseous when looking at Darcy and her broken arm. 

She’d fallen down the stairs.

For all the danger that living in the tower could bring them – and occasionally did, for all they’d tried to keep it on the streets and away from home – Darcy had tripped on one of Barton’s discarded arrows and fallen down two flights of stairs. Crumpled in a heap at the bottom, a mess of checked shirt and ripped jeans, Steve had found her and carried her gently to the medical bay, her friend Jane fussing the whole way at his elbow. 

She smiled at him, eyes crinkling as she looked him over. With her unbroken arm, she beckoned him over to her, sat upright in the hospital bed surrounded by pillows and blankets. He hovered in the doorway, hesitant, despite how close they’d become – how close he’d let her come to him, unwittingly so. 

“Come in, idiot.” She huffed, and patted the bed. He sighed, and shuffled in awkwardly. Darcy squeezed over, leaving still not enough space for his body and he perched uncomfortably on the bed near her knees. 

“Grape?” She thrust a bag under his nose and he recoiled slightly. She shook it invitingly but he declined silently, Shrugging Darcy brought the bag back to her chest and popped two into her mouth at once. Bucky tried not to stare at her mouth as she chewed thoughtfully, her red lips moving in interesting patterns that led him to hot, dark thoughts he had to shut down. With a little reluctance. 

“Y’know,” She was saying, around the remnants of the fruit. “I have no idea why people give other people grapes, just because they broke themselves. It’s not like grapes have some kind of inherent healing properties.” She paused, and tilted her head to one side inquisitively. “Do they?”

Bucky shrugged hopelessly. He’d never been given grapes for any reason that he could remember, broken or not, so he was ill-equipped to answer. 

“Thanks for coming to visit me.” She dropped her eyes to the bed shyly and then sneaked them back up again to his own, the blue dimmed slightly by the low lighting in the room. Bucky scratched the back of his head, his mop of dark hair flopping around his face as he did so. He gave her a small smile in return. 

“I…” He swallowed, before continuing. “I wanted to.” It felt like a confession. It felt like a weight lifting from his chest, one he hadn’t even realised was settled there. He felt his gaze drop and the tangled sheets suddenly seemed the most interesting thing in the world. 

He thought he might have stayed staring at them for an eternity had she not slipped a small hand with unsure fingers into his own, and squeezed tightly. He looked up and met her, looking back at him, her lips curled into the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.

“Guess what?” She said, not taking her eyes off him. “I wanted you too, as well.”


End file.
